PSR welcomed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s release today of a proposed update to air quality standards that will limit the emission of lethal air toxics from power plants.

Thanks to a negotiated agreement, Washington State’s only coal-fired power plant is now scheduled to slash its generating capacity in half by 2020 and close entirely by 2025.

A recent report estimates that coal’s impacts – including its effects on health and the damage in inflicts on the environment -- cost the U.S. about $345 billion annually. According to the report, a full rendering of coal’s costs would double to triple the price of coal-generated electricity.

Energy policy is health policy, writes PSR member Dr. Howard Frumkin in this op-ed.

Dr. Alexander Hamling, a Washington PSR board member, warns of the public health dangers from coal pollution.

In a just-released report, PSR and two environmental organizations have revealed that most of the chromium that leaches from coal ash into ground and surface water takes the form of highly carcinogenic hexavalent chromium. Long known to cause lung cancer when inhaled, hexavalent chromium has been shown to cause stomach cancer in humans, and intestinal and oral cancers in laboratory animals, when ingested in water.

A new report from environmental and social justice groups reports that hexavalent chromium, a chemical linked to cancer, is regularly leached from coal ash sites. The report, “EPA's Blind Spot: Hexavalent Chromium in Coal Ash,” is a collaboration of the law firm Earthjustice, PSR and the Environmental Integrity Project.

A bill introduced Thursday in the state House will protect Washington families from the harmful health effects of burning coal for electricity and help build the economy of the community now hosting the state’s lone coal-burning power plant.

A report released this week titled "EPA's Blind Spot: Hexavalent Chromium in Coal Ash" was produced with Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Environmental Integrity Project.

Two southwestern Pennsylvania fly ash disposal sites are among 28 such sites in 17 states that have contaminated groundwater by leaking toxic, cancer-causing hexavalent chromium, according to a new report co-authored by PSR.

A new report by Earthjustice, PSR and the Environmental Integrity Project indicated that 28 fly ash disposal sites in 17 states have leaked toxic hexavalent chromium into groundwater.

PSR's Dr. Alan Lockwood explains how closing coal-burning plants will save lives.

PSR's Security Director David Hart is quoted in this piece on the State of the Union.

If Congress and the White House intend to move forward with a “clean energy standard” (CES), it will be a huge contradiction to include nuclear reactors and coal-fired power plants, according to three experts.

In a press release on Tuesday, a group opposing the landfill cited a recent study by the Physicians for Social Responsibility -- noting that toxic material from found in coal ash can injure major organ systems, damage physical health and contribute to mortality.

A new report Coal Ash, the toxic threat to our health and environment has been published by Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) in the USA. It is an analysis of the health hazards of the legacy of coal combustion, the coal ash dumps that epitomise power generation landscapes.

About a third of the nation’s coal ash storage sites are wet ponds. “These are the ones that have the potential of a catastrophe such as we saw in Tennessee,” said Barbara Gottlieb, who directs the coal program Code Black for the Physicians for Social Responsibility.

PSR mobilized health professionals to testify against unsafe coal ash disposal at EPA hearings around the country. PSR also wrote and distributed a new study, “Coal Ash: The Toxic Threat to Our Health and Environment.”

The group Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility (IPSR) launched an anti-coal campaign today. IPSR Coordinator Maureen McCue spoke at a statehouse press conference and released a report showing 92% of Iowans live within 30 miles of a coal plant.

Conservation groups are challenging the approval of a project to export coal to Asia from Longview. Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility called the project a “lose-lose-lose proposition for human health.”